The 2023 Lollapalooza Berlin event at Olympiapark utilised a major Robe moving light installation, with almost 500 Robe fixtures – over 75 on the Alternative Stage, over 125 on Main Stage North and over 250 on Main Stage South, plus some on Perry’s stage.
Lighting production was delivered to the Main Stage North by rental specialists TSE, Main Stage South by Media Resource Group (MRG), Alternative Stage by Sound Projekt (SPS) and Parry’s stage by Colour Sound Experiment.
Robe’s ‘On the Road’ show truck was also on-site, located backstage left at Main Stage North, as for the first time at this event, TSE located their WYSIWYG pre-viz studio in the truck –offering all lighting designers access to the service. With support by Thomas Heydthausen from Berlin-based pre-vis specialist prefocus.
Six of Robe’s new FOOTSIE2 footlight fixtures with wide diffusers and integral cable tray were made available on the thrust of Main Stage North.
The FOOTSIE2s were embraced by Imagine Dragons and their Lighting Designer Mitchell “Mitch” Schellenger, and tour lighting programmer Dennis Brasser.
Thomas Stütz was TSE’s project manager for Main Stage North which utilised 12 iFORTES and 8 iSpiiders on the front truss. They were accompanied by thirty-four Spiider LED wash beams positioned on the main overhead trusses, together with 30 FORTEs.
Alongside them were 36 MegaPointes positioned on the side ladder trusses in a Matrix of 5×3 each side, and some on the deck.
Main Stage North production lighting design was created by Klaus Gräwert and Janine Lutz who commented that it was “ideal” to be able for the front IP-rated fixtures to be twinned with identical standard FORTE and Spiider products on the rest of the rig, all with the same control parameters and characteristics.
Imagine Dragons brought their own touring RoboSpot systems including BMFL FollowSpots & BMFL FS LTs rigged on the back truss, plus two on the FOH towers.
A total of 60 TSE crew and staff were on duty across all the shifts, headed by project leaders Thomas Stütz and Marty Lemke and working closely with Janine Lutz.
Alternating in flip-flop style, the South Stage lighting technical production was supplied by another major German rental company, the Media Resource Group (MRG), and project managed by Kilian Körber.
Robe MegaPointes was a major part of the lighting scheme for this stage, with 120 on the rig, together with 30 BMFL Blades, 70 Spiider wash beams, 27 Tetra2s and eight PATT 2013s.
This year, the leading specification came from David Guetta whose lighting design by the team at High Scream most influenced the Stage South.
Körber noted: “as a service provider, this allows us to offer a ‘full spectrum’ that is easy for everyone to utilize. Robe is rider-suitable, and everyone gladly accepts the fixtures, so the lights are perfect for these scenarios.”
Paris-based ambient electronic / dance duo The Blaze added another 24 of their own floor based MegaPointes to the 120 already in the rig on Main Stage South, while for American singer and rapper Macklemore, MRG provided an additional floor package comprising MegaPointes, strobes and Robe PATT 2013s.
Accommodating David Guetta’s set and lighting requirements was one of the challenges of this year’s event, and getting this right was relished by Körber and his crew. “Seeing the results of all that work, detail and pre-preparation was very satisfying,” he commented on the = results as the = DJ and producer fired up the festival.
grandMA3 fullsize consoles were used for lighting control and all apart from two visiting lighting operators used the house control desks.
Up-to-date MVR files were supplied for the individual days and shows, and most operators both utilised and were impressed by the facility.
“Personally, I found it a great place to work and hang out! It would be great to do it again next year!” Körber enthused. “It is simply an impressive festival with no expense or effort spared to make it an enjoyable and memorable experience for everyone,” he concluded.
MRG has been using Robe products for many years and has a large rental inventory spanning several product ranges. The company has been a supplier of the Lollapalooza Berlin event since 2022.
Lighting for the Alternative stage was supplied by Sound Projekt Veranstaltungstechnik from Stralsund (SPS).
It included 72 Robe moving lights, a combination of iPointe 65s, MegaPointes, Spiiders and iSpiiders among which were rigged on the overhead rig and deployed on the floor.
Alternative Stage project manager Fabian Schwabe commented that working festival stages always requires the most flexible stage setups that can be used by multiple productions and artists. “That’s why we used MegaPointes and Spiiders both in the air and on the deck in consultation with the festival organisers,” he explained. These were supplemented by weather-proof iPointe 65s and iSpiiders in the front truss.
“It was perfect to have a front truss with identical IP-rated fixtures to those further back,” he elucidated.
The Alternative Stage lighting operator was Max Struppe using grandMA control.
Lighting for Perry’s Stage – named after Perry Farrell from Jane’s Addiction, the event’s creator – was supplied by Colour Sound Experiment from the UK. Their rig this year included Robe Spiiders and two RoboSpot remote follow spot systems in combination with BMFL Spots.
